Just Like Today

The New World Trade Center, June 2012

The sky was crystal blue, just like today. It was a Tuesday (just like today.) I was doing my job, teaching people how to do things, just like today. A colleague rushed into my room and grabbed me by the shoulders. They’ve bombed the Pentagon, she said. No one knows where they will hit next, she said. Her eyes were wild. She paused a moment, then fled. I thought she must be overreacting. I turned on the TV in my room and watched without breathing the world change forever.

I heard as through a down pillow the words of the news reporter: twin towers, jetliners, accident, planned, terrorists, North Tower, South Tower, the Pentagon. The White House is being evacuated, the Sears tower is being evacuated, my senses are being evacuated. Then my eyes watched on live television as thousands of people who had things to do and lives to live and people to hold and children to raise and parents to make proud and friends to laugh with become…no more. Just…no more.

You must breathe now. (Just like today.)

Later, after the unbelieving chaos of the day smoothed itslef like a clean sheet onto an old bed (covering things that you would rather not think about) I walked out into the still-alive early Autumn weather under a perfect blue sky entirely devoid of jet trails and wondered what the next few days would hold. The world that had changed forever still looked so blue and hopeful and promising.

And still I had to remind myself to breathe (just like today).

Ode to Computer Maintenance

Watching the Green Bar
crawl by microns across screens
steals my life in bits

My Heart Went to Space With Sally Ride

My heart went to space with Sally Ride.
The first woman in space I dreamed would be me
Had hair curlier than mine
And a smile warmer than mine
And a mind much sharper than mine
But she had my heart.

It felt the rumble of the rockets at takeoff
And our heart paused for a shred of a second.
Then our heart fluttered
Watching the sky from the cocoon of our seat
Moving from blue to deeper blue to indigo to black.

But the stars — Oh, the stars.
“The stars aren’t bigger, but they are brighter,”
said the astronaut with my heart.

The sight of stars
Which always always cause my heart to swell
And my breathing to slow,
The sight of stars from space (breathe deep)

And the song began.
A sound like the resonance of finest crystal
Felt first, then heard
By the shared heart that lifted itself to sing
To SING
To join the most ancient and deep and profound of songs
The hum, the chant, the symphony of the Universe.

My heart went to space with Sally Ride.
It sings the crystalline melody still.

Sally Ride on the Flight Deck of STS7

The Infamous Annual Easter Joke (Warning: You Can’t Un-See It)

I have no children in my house right now.
Which means that I had no one to tell the Annual Ether Bunny Joke to. It can’t be Easter in our house without the retelling of the Bunny joke.
And that made me sad.
Then it occurred to me: yes I do! I have a couple hundred kids (in various stages of grown-uppedness) to tell!

Yay! Now I’m happy!

So here it is ~ I’ve even tried to make it pretty & festive for you!

There they are.

Knock Knock!
Who’s there?
Ether!
Ether who?
Ether Bunny! 

Knock Knock!
Who’s there?
Ether!
Ether who?
Ether Bunny!

Knock Knock!
Who’s there?
Ether!
Ether who?
Ether Bunny!

Knock Knock!
Who’s there?
Nuther Ether!
Ether who?
Nuther Ether Bunny!

Knock Knock!
Who’s there?
Orange!
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn’t say Ether Bunny?

Knock Knock!
Who’s there?
Cargo!
Cargo who?
Cargo Beep! Beep! Run over all the Ether Bunnies!

Wait!! Keep reading! It’s not over!

 

Knock Knock!
Who’s there?
Boo!
Boo who?
Aw, don’t cry – Ether Bunnies be back next year!

 

You’re welcome.

Happy Easter!

On the Occasion of my Youngest’s Adulthood

My youngest turned twenty-one yesterday.

I’m gazing at one of my favorite pictures of her as I write this – she and her brother posed on a decorative stone wall at a house that was new to us the previous winter. It was then late spring and the weather was glorious, so I got the two of them outside for some pictures. Cate was three when the photo was taken, and it is how I remember her best: unruly pieces of blond fluffy waves escaping my best efforts to contain them in a ponytail, and the brightest, happiest smile crinkling her beautiful grey-green eyes. She looks perfectly comfortable and happy with herself.

Right next to that photo is one of her senior portraits, the one in which she is wearing her school uniform, with a couple of twists. Against school regulations, her shirt is partially tucked (must be fully tucked at all times), her belt is covered with green studs (should be brown or black unadorned leather) and she’s wearing Chuck Taylors on her feet (only brown or black leather dress shoes were permitted). She has her hands on her hips, looking at the camera with a playful “How do you like me now?” smirk. That’s my girl. Stepping ever so slightly outside the lines.

Catherine always did things her way, from the very beginning, in a curious combination of whimsy and will. She steadfastly refused to nurse for nearly her first week of life, so that in desperation I’d give in and give her a bottle. When she was a toddler, she put on her father’s Donegal tweed Walking Hat and one of her mittens to “dust” the dining room table. She insisted on dressing herself in outfits like polka-dotted shorts, a stripey top, and a different sock on each foot – all in colliding circus colors. Sometimes I’d find her in her room, “dancing to music that only I can hear.” Beauty and the Beast is still her favorite movie, and she wants to be married someday in a beautiful gold ball gown, with her groom in royal blue tails.

She feels deeply and strongly. She cares for those in her world, both friends and those she hasn’t met, with uncompromising vigor. She has no patience with bigotry or prejudice, and absolutely no tolerance for ignorance. (I tell her that she needs to work on that last one.) There are no grey areas in Cate’s emotional world.

The co-Valedictorians of Cate’s high school class dedicated their graduation address to listing the positive attributes of each of their class members. Their words for my daughter were the best words I’ve ever heard: “Cate Wigginton – you are your own person. You never bowed to peer pressure.” So they’d noticed, too.

My baby wants to be an FBI agent. Of course, I worry about that choice. But she will not be swayed. That’s good. She’ll need every ounce of that resolve to become a real G-Man.

She may not know it, but she helped me regain my own whimsy. It had gotten buried in grown-up and grief by the time she came along. But with the force-of-nature that was my small daughter, there was no faking your way through the tea parties and Polly Pockets. She knew when I wasn’t completely invested in the game, and she’d insist that I match her level of commitment to the fairy tales. (All it took was one of those crinkle-nosed smiles.)

I look ahead to her next few years and I see wonderful, challenging, life-defining days. What a world my daughter will create. No matter what, she’s going to do it her way.

Belle with a gun & badge? Why not.

A Hole the Size of a Bear

There was nothing subtle about my dad, and this was definitely true of his hugs. Everything about him was big. His joy was gigantic, his anger was loud, and his love was deep. When he talked, he gestured with big, sweeping motions. His hugs weren’t given often or lightly, which made them precious. But still huge. When Dad hugged you, he wrapped you from head to toe, top to bottom, 360 degrees. I’d give anything, anything asked of me, to have one more.

My dad was a bear of a man, not necessarily tall (5’10”) but substantial and solid. Thick. He had the biggest hands I’ve ever seen. I have very clear memories of his very large hand engulfing my very small hand as he held my hand while we walked downtown sidewalks. He held it so surely; I knew I was safe as long as my hand stayed in his. I want to feel that again.

Dad reminded me of Clemenza from The Godfather – “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.” (A gun you can get anywhere. But a good cannoli, well…) Oddly, he hated The Godfather. He thought it insulting to Italian Americans. He even joined a formal and vocal boycott of the movie. Personally, I found this puzzling. Enough of the stuff in our house had no serial numbers, and enough of my speeding tickets had just evaporated, that somewhere in the back of my mind I’d assumed Dad was connected. And his best jokes were about dim or naïve Italians…so what was it about this movie that he found so distasteful? Was it too close to home? I never got the chance to ask.

Dad could tell a joke like a professional comedian. And he always laughed right along with everyone. Not in that awkward laugh-at-your-own-jokes-because-no-one-else-is-laughing way. He loved to make people laugh. His laugh was as big as he was, and infectious.  I’d give up a few years of my own life to hear it again.

Dad, in a boat.

His presence was magnetic, and people loved him.  Even family gatherings, which were boisterous by nature in an Italian family, were always more animated when Dad was there and on his game. His friends, and he had many, were powerfully loyal. Women, especially, were drawn to him. I always wondered what my mom thought of this. I wish I would’ve asked him if he’d noticed.

 

Dad was intense and felt things deeply, though he didn’t show it. I wouldn’t have wanted him as my enemy.

He didn’t know exactly what to do with me. I think he planned a huge family, and what he got was one small, adopted daughter. So I became both the Princess and the oldest son. He taught me how to fish, and how to throw a football and a baseball, but he drew the line at teaching me how to shoot a rifle, which I really, really wanted to do. He purposely intimidated every boy who came to pick me up for a date. He insisted that I go to college and was immensely proud of my intelligence. But when, in 1975, I told him what I wanted to do with my life, he responded, “There’s no such thing as a lady lawyer,” which of course meant that I would be expected to follow a more traditional “woman’s work” sort of career. I wonder what it must have been like to want so much for your girl child at a time when traditional roles were changing. How I’d love to discuss it with him right now.

Can I go back to the hugs?

The best hug I ever got from Dad came when the family had moved me into my dorm for my first year at college. Mom, Dad, my Aunt Mary & my Aunt Angie (both dad’s sisters) all made the trip, just like a good Italian family. We’d done everything we were supposed to do, and it was time for them to go home. As they started to drive off and we were all waving at each other, Dad unexpectedly stopped the car and hopped out. He wrapped me in a hug that involved every bit of him, body and soul, and his cheek rested on the top of my head. I was starting to suffocate and was about to protest when, against what must have been a mighty force of will, he let a small sob escape. He quickly kissed the top of my head and released his hold, and jumped back into the car. I waved again (through tears now) but Dad wouldn’t look at me. The car drove off and I was alone in a way that I’d never been before in my life. I got used to it, but I never got over it.

That moment lives with me and keeps me company and tears my heart. The 20^th anniversary of his passing was March 2, and the day just never gets easier. His passing left a hole in my life in the size and shape of him. He was the center of my life, my moral compass, my protector and supporter. I miss him. And I’d trade almost anything to have one more day with him.

Customer “Service”

Customer Service is mislabeled.
It should be called Customer Frustration. Or Customer Baiting. But not Service.

Has this ever happened to you?

Customer Service Rep: HellomynameisJasonmayIhaveyourserialnumberdateofpurchasedresssizeandreasonforcalling? (I’m just guessing about that dress size thing, because they talk so fast that you can’t possibly understand everything they’ve just said.)

You:
Ummm, okay, “Jason,” I don’t have the date of purchase, but I’m calling because my computer won’t boot into Windows. It turns on, but the cursor just blinks on a black screen. I can hear the hard drive spinning, but no boot-up. I’ve tried restarting in safe mode, doing a hard reset, reseating the hard drive, checking all the other cables, and I’ve run several diagnostics. Here’s what the diagnostics show…

“Jason”(whose driver’s license most assuredly does not say “Jason”): BeforedoingthatcouldyoupleasecheckIsTheComputerPluggedInToTheWall?

You:
(can’t possibly answer. You’re speechless with anger.)

“Jason”:
Hello?

You (in a whisper that used to indicate to your kids that they’d better run):
Yes, “Jason,” the computer is plugged in to the wall. Did you not hear anything else that I just said?

I know I am not alone in this frustration. It’s happened to me more times than I care to recall. It happened again on Friday. But this should have been simple. Especially because it wasn’t by phone, it was in writing.

So here’s what happened.

When I logged on to our yearbook site on Friday morning, instead of the usual home page I found a status splash page that said, among other things, this:

What the heck? We’d submitted those pages on January 18^th. I’d stood beside my Editor in Chief as she clicked the Submit button on each page with a bit of bravado that day, as this was her very first actual submission and she’d worked very hard to get these pages designed & finished to her satisfaction. Clicking on the “View Page Groups” link to see what it had to tell me, I found that indeed the company didn’t have our pages logged as Submitted. I knew it had to be some kind of mistake or computer glitch. So I decided to use the Need Help? button to send an email to tech support rather than call, as I assumed this would be an easy, oh-we’re-sorry-we-missed-that sort of oops. Here’s what I said:

My status report is showing pages 1 through 8 as Overdue and In Progress – not Submitted. We submitted pages 1 – 8 on January 18. The ladder also shows them as  Submitted (no buttons available.) Please correct the status of these to show them as Submitted. Thanks.

About an hour later, here’s what came back:

Click the View Page Groups via the Home Page:Deadline tab. This will show the groups which can be submitted.

Thank you,
Amy

As I had not asked how to ascertain which groups could be submitted, I was puzzled. Maybe I hadn’t been clear in my request. I re-read the request. Nope, pretty clear to me. This company’s customer service unit is in the south; maybe I was typing with a distinct Yankee nasal twang. Maybe Amy was trying to fulfill a long-held expectation of the good customer service rep (I know this, because I used to do that job) and answer the question the customer hasn’t yet asked.  But generally you do that after you’ve solved the problem that the customer did raise, or if the customer is so vague in his request that you have to probe for more info. So I tried again. This time I attached pictures, just in case Amy wasn’t all that good with the English.

Amy,

That is not what I asked. I DID click on the View Page Group. It is showing our submitted pages as “In Progress.” They are not. They have been submitted.

I’ve attached two screen shots illustrating my point. Ex1 shows the View Page Group with pages 1 – 8 as “In Progress.” Ex2 shows the ladder pages with no buttons on those pages.

As I requested the first time – please fix this or tell me what’s wrong so that I can fix it. Thank you.

There. THAT was as clear and pointed as it could be. I sent it off, certain that this would fix the communication problem and the next email I received would say “We’re so sorry. It’s fixed now!”

Ha.

After my next class, I checked my email with the certainty of a clear communicator who is expecting a satisfactory resolution to the problem. Here’s what I received, and I am not making this up:

The pages will need to be unlocked before the Complete button will appear again.

Thank you,
Amy

Once again (and this seems to be a theme running through my life) I wondered if I’d forgotten how to understand English. I truly did not know whether to laugh or cry at this point. What I did do is shout “OHMIGOD THAT IS NOT WHAT I ASKED!” at the screen. A colleague poked his head into my room and asked if everything was okay. I mumbled something about crappy customer service and forwarded the whole mess to my yearbook sales rep, whose continued income depends on the yearbook adviser (me) being happy with his company. I’m still waiting for an answer, although I have to admit I’m half afraid of what the next email might say:

Thank you for your favorable service question. You will need to restart the computer and empty the internet before proceeding. Have a nice day!

 

 

The Self-Cleaning House

I suck at housecleaning. Mostly because I hate it. It’s never finished and it is completely unappreciated. Well, not really unappreciated. It’s just that you don’t get applause when you wash a floor, like you do when you serve a great dinner. (Yes, I have gotten applause. After I ordered my family to do it.)

I remember with great clarity the moment I realized as a new adult that life was not all Do Whatever You Want Because Nobody Will Nag You: it came just five days after I’d meticulously vacuumed, dusted, and scrubbed my eensy first apartment. As I settled down in my favorite TV-watching chair with a big bowl of popcorn, I noticed dust on the coffee table. But…but…but…didn’t I just DO that?! Alarmed, I looked at the kitchen floor. Oh no – small splots of yesterday’s dinner preparation by the kitchen sink! DUST BUNNIES EVERYWHERE!! With the frantic violin screeches from Psycho playing in my head, I realized the First Universal Truth of Adulthood: housework does not stay done. Since that moment, I have spent lots of time and money trying to create a wormhole of Easy through the universe of Hard Work. (No doubt the time would have been better spent actually cleaning the house.)

At first, I tried just not doing it. Just try to picture what my apartment looked like after a month or so of that approach. It was revolting, even to me. So it appeared I had no choice: clean the house, or die from dust bunny asphyxiation, which would happen because I stuck to the floor that I fell on when I tripped over something that I left where it dropped.

The current state of my kitchen table, lest you think I've changed my messy ways.

Then I became obsessed by cleaning gadgets. You know, the things that are supposed to make cleaning A BREEZE! First came the mop that I could wring without getting my hands wet. Awesome! But I still had to mop the floor – twice, actually, to dry up the pools that the Wonder Mop left. Then came the Swiffer Wet Jet™. Awesome! Except that I still had to use it. And mop afterward with the aforementioned Wonder Mop, as the Swiffer Wet Jet™ left a sticky film behind. Then dry up the pools left by the Wonder Mop. This morning, as I steam-cleaned my kitchen floor, I found myself resolving to hit the web when I was finished, in search of a better, more efficient floor steamer. See, the one I have leaves enough wetness behind that I have to follow with a dry cloth (I can’t lie. It’s a ShamWow.) to keep the floor from looking streaked and awful when it’s finished. Certainly a floor cleaner with more steam vents and a thicker cleaning pad would change my life forever! Yes! That’s the answer! And wouldn’t you know, that is exactly what I did. I had one all picked out and in the QVC shopping cart before it dawned on me: no matter what great gadget I bought to clean my house with, I WOULD ACTUALLY HAVE TO USE IT.

My clean floor. Take a good look - it'll be spotty by this evening.

When I was a kid, I heard my mom talking about a friend who had a central vacuum installed in her house. I remember feeling giddy at the concept: a self-cleaning house! I envisioned a house in which you just flipped a central switch and all the crumbs & pet hair were magically sucked away. (I also wondered how this happened without sucking the actual pet away. I never solved that puzzle.) When we built our house, I had a central vac installed. Guess what? I ACTUALLY HAVE TO USE IT.

So the battle continues. Until someone invents a self-cleaning house, I will continue to search for ways to avoid cleaning. Short of just not doing it, that is. I don’t want my obituary to read “Beloved high school teacher dies from sticking to floor.”

Speechless

Well, you have done it. Rendered me speechless. People have been trying to shut me up for years, but apparently what it took is being Freshly Pressed and having the attention of thousands of people.

I want you to know that I have read each and every comment you’ve left here, on this post and the others. You’ve made me smile, sigh, chuckle, shake my head, and, every once in while, worry deeply about the mental state of a great many people like myself. I started out responding to each comment, but it quickly got to be my full-time job. So I wanted to tell you – all six-hundred-something of you (as of this moment) –  Thank You. I’m humbled and exhilarated and motivated by your compliments. I’ve really loved your stories of commiseration. I could not be happier that you like my writing.

I’m working on new “real” post, but in the meantime I wanted you to know that I’m grateful.

And losing sleep. (Nothing like a little pressure.)

The Crayon Fascist

They’re my Crayons. I’ll show you exactly how to use them. But I won’t let you.

This is how my husband described my childhood issue with my Crayons. I think it’s pretty accurate. Let me explain.

As a kid, I loved to color. For the longest time, I got along with my little box of 16 measly colors (I was a spoiled kid), wishing I could color Cinderella’s gown Cornflower when all I had was Blue. Then one day my mom came home from a shopping trip with that magic box of 64 Crayola® crayons – the one with the built-in sharpener on the back. (I’m hearing a choir of angels right now just thinking about it.) I carefully opened the lid – how cool was that lid? – and beheld the majesty of the 64 different colors. Maize! I had a Maize crayon! They were packaged so carefully, with the crayons subdivided into four smaller boxes. It looked to me like the people at the Crayola® factory arranged the colors into four coordinated and happy groups. It was just beautiful.

gocksfrocks.blogspot.com

And that’s where my issues started.

Any time I used my Fantastic Box of 64 Crayola® Crayons, I would carefully select the color that was exactly appropriate to the item I was coloring, gently slide it out of its spot in the Smaller Box Inside the Big Box, color with it lightly (after first meticulously outlining the section to be colored), then slide it back into its appointed space. Thus I maintained the order and beauty of The Fantastic Box of 64 Crayola® Crayons the way the fine people of Binney & Smith had worked so hard to provide.

Then the neighborhood kids came to my house to color.

We headed to the basement where my little kid-sized table & chairs were. There was the Fantastic Box. As I spread out the selection of coloring books, I watched in utter horror as my friend Beth opened the Fantastic Box and dumped the contents out onto the tabletop. I was speechless. But not for long.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” I shrieked.

Beth was just as dumbfounded. “Coloring.”

“NO!! YOU CAN’T DO THAT!! THEY’RE IN ORDER!!” Panic was beginning to rise, along with the pitch of my voice. Binney & Smith were never going to allow me to have another Fantastic Box of 64 Crayola® Crayons if I didn’t fix this fast.

“DON’T TOUCH THEM!” I hollered. I tried to envision that pristine box. Was Cerulean next to Brick Red, or Indian Red? Or was that Blue Green?

Beth just stared at me. “You’re weird,” she pronounced, and picked up a crayon & started coloring. Roughly, too. I lost it.

I have very little memory of exactly what I said and did right then, but I think it involved some pushing and grabbing. Poor Beth got disgusted and left. I did my best to put the Box back together the way it was, hoping that Binney & Smith would forgive me.

And thus it happened every time one of my playmates came over to color. I would hold tightly to the Fantastic Box of 64 Crayola® Crayons, and instruct my little friend in the acceptable usage of my crayons: take one at a time, do NOT peel the paper, and put it back in the exact spot that it came from. God help the child who broke one. They were banished from my basement indefinitely.

It’s safe to say that I lost more than one friend over my fascism. But it didn’t faze me.

Here’s the sad part: I see this quirk raising its horrid head to this day. I’m very picky about how my classroom equipment is used & stored. (This can be quite a problem, as I’m in charge of several video cameras, tapes, microphones, and headphones for our broadcast program.) I have two pen/pencil holders at work: one that is for anyone to use as they wish, and one that is MINE. I get very uncomfortable when anyone mistakenly takes something from the MINE holder. I manage to not yank whatever it is out of the hand of the poor unsuspecting student or colleague, but my stomach is slightly queasy until it is back in its home in the MINE container. I even prohibit students from touching anything on my desk. I keep it light, and thankfully they always comply, asking before they come into the Magic Space (as they call it.) I’m also responsible for the maintenance of the school’s laptop carts. Just close your eyes and imagine what kind of stress that causes me. I keep a large supply of Tums in my desk.

The Crayon Fascist lives.